


death, taxes, jughead

by sullypants



Series: a comic miniverse [2]
Category: Archie Comics
Genre: F/M, and betty tries to track him down, in which jughead is elusive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:35:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23930902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sullypants/pseuds/sullypants
Summary: Nothing’s consistent in life like Jughead is.Well—until now.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Series: a comic miniverse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1725463
Comments: 74
Kudos: 160
Collections: 7th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	death, taxes, jughead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Raptorlily (raptorlilian)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raptorlilian/gifts).



> Just a lil follow-up to [for want of a burger](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23902627). Gifted to raptor, because she's who I think of when I think of comic-canon bughead.

Betty is...super confused.

One moment she’s venting to Jughead about the umpteenth time Archie’s ditched her, even though she’d confirmed their plans _three_ times, and the next—he’s kissing her.

And she’s kissing him.

Her tongue is in Jughead Jones’s mouth.

He tastes like a banana milkshake. 

This is the strangest day.

When Jughead pulls back from her, she opens her eyes slowly and simply stares at him.

He looks at her with great concentration and slowly nods his head, like he’s realizing something, some kind of hard concept he’d been struggling with and just finally gotten.

( _But Jughead’s so smart_ , Betty thinks. He sleeps through every class and still walks away with a 3.9 GPA.)

Before she can summon concrete thoughts or any kind of substantive words—he’s gone. 

He’s up and out of the booth, the bell over the door of Pop’s rings—and he’s striding through the parking lot like a man on a mission.

She watches his retreating back and thinks, _huh_.

She eventually realizes she’s going to be late for dinner, and hustles home.

She is so silent over dinner, lost in her own mind, that when her mother waves her hand in front of her face she nearly jumps.

She begs off (“I’m fine, just thinking about my chem project,” she tells her parents, who don’t question her further, thank god) and when she’s upstairs in her bedroom, she sinks down onto the edge of her bed and just stares at the window, hands between her knees.

She’s not sure how long she sits there, but she’s shaken out of her stupor when she spots a movement across the way.

Archie is in his bedroom. 

She turns her head away, but then rises and moves to close the blinds.

Two days pass and she hardly sees hide-nor-hair of Jughead. He’s in and out of class, of the school lounge, of even _Pop’s_ , in hardly a flash, and she’s not how to interpret any of it.

She wonders if he’s avoiding her, if he regrets kissing her.

She’s not sure _she_ regrets it.

On the third day, she’s at wit’s end. She calls Polly after dinner.

Her sister launches into a monologue on the story she’s reporting, something to do with public transit in San Francisco. Betty can’t focus, and so she interrupts very bluntly.

“I made out with Jughead Jones.”

Polly’s silent for a beat, and then:

“ _What_?”

Betty nods, even though Polly can’t see her over the phone. Her eyes roam about her room, and she stands and paces back and forth next to her bed.

“Yes. I made out with him,” she pauses a beat. “I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?” Polly asks her.

“I…” Betty begins, before trailing off.

After a moment Polly speaks again.

“Were you drunk?”

“What? No!” Betty feels a little offended on Jughead’s behalf. 

“What about Archie?”

Betty shrugs into the emptiness of her bedroom. “I...don’t know about Archie,” she tells her sister. “I haven’t spoken with him.”

“Hm,” Polly says, and then they are both silent.

“He was out with V, anyway.”

After a minute Polly chimes back in, _sotto voce_. “Was he good at it?”

Betty’s heart seems to swell.

“Yes. Yes, he was.” 

In the lunchroom the next day she finds herself again lost in thought. At some point, Kevin’s given up on trying to engage her in conversation and turned to gossip with Melody instead. 

Chin in hand, Betty focuses in on the formica of the table and lets her eyes go hazy. It’s almost a little like meditation, she thinks. She’s so completely zoned out, she jumps when Veronica drops a bento box onto the table and slides into the seat across from her. 

Veronica removes a pair of chopsticks from the band around the box and gives Betty a Cheshire grin.

“B.”

Betty smiles softly at Veronica in response, and Veronica’s smile fades. She looks confused.

“What’s wrong?

Betty isn’t sure how to begin answering the question. She’s not sure she’s ready to tell anyone other than Polly, at least until she gets a chance to chat with Jughead. If she can _find_ him. 

Instead, she shrugs one shoulder and waves a hand in a non-verbal _I don’t know_. 

Veronica looks down and begins to lay out her lunch, but Betty notices her eyes occasionally swing back up to peer across the table. 

After a moment, Veronica exhales deeply and places her chopsticks down.

“Is this about Friday? Because I took Archie to that party in Seaside?”

Betty’s eyes open a little wider. She shakes her head. “Oh—no. No, I’m not thinking about that.”

Veronica doesn’t appear convinced, twisting her mouth in thought. Peering askance at Kevin and Melody, she leans forward a little, palms flat on the formica, and whispers.

“I know you had plans. I’m...it was…” Veronica’s eyes roam the tabletop like she’s hoping to find her words there, and Betty’s eyebrows draw together. 

She thinks Veronica is...apologizing to her?

Of all times to apologize for interrupting or getting in the way of Betty’s plans with Archie—now, this moment, when she’s spent days wondering about Jughead Jones, about _kissing_ Jughead Jones, and when—she suddenly realizes—she has hardly spared a thought for Archie Andrews beyond thanking him when he passed her a worksheet in chemistry lab yesterday. 

_Huh_ , Betty thinks. 

“Huh,” she says out loud. 

Veronica looks up. 

“‘Huh’ what?” Veronica asks.

Betty opens her mouth to speak, before snapping it shut again. She chews the inside of her cheek in thought for a moment, eyeing Veronica.

“I...will tell you later.” She stands to collect her lunch things. “I gotta go.” 

It’s another day and a half before she finally, finally hunts him down. They have calculus together and when Jughead zooms out of class at the bell, Betty is ready. She hightails it after him, blowing past a slightly windswept Ginger Lopez.

Betty throws a “Sorry, Ginger!” over her shoulder but continues to speed walk after him.

Only for Jughead to slip into the boy’s bathroom.

_Damn it_ , she thinks. She wore her running shoes for this. 

She considers. She looks up and down the corridor as her classmates scatter about like ants, filing back into classrooms. The bell’s about to ring again. 

No one has come in or out of the bathroom since Jughead went in.

She thinks some more. The bell rings, and Jinx Malloy dashes past her and slides into Ms. Grundy’s classroom. 

She’s alone.

She crosses her arms over her chest, watching the door. 

Another minute passes and Betty thinks, _what the hell_.

Jughead is leaning against the sink and looking down at his phone, tapping his toe rapidly in what Betty thinks is impatience.

His eyes widen when he sees her, and she sees them flick to the door over her shoulder.

“Jughead!” She puts her arms out to block his exit. “You can’t just...kiss-and-run!” She doesn’t intend to yell but it slips out.

To her surprise, he looks immediately bashful and nods. 

“I know. I know. That was rude. I _am_ sorry about that.” His head bobs back and forth. “And. You know. The other thing.”

Betty’s heart sinks a little.

“The…” she begins. “Do you mean kissing me?”

Jughead is inscrutable as he regards her carefully. 

“It was…,” he begins, “a little forward of me.”

Betty’s heart sinks even lower.

“Did you… Do you,” she starts and stops. She licks her teeth and summons her resolve. “Do you regret it?” Her voice sounds small, even to herself.

Jughead’s eyes widen and he looks over her shoulder, around the room, anywhere but directly at her, and suddenly Betty feels like crying.

“I…,” he trails off almost immediately, and Betty just watches him. Something in his eyes calculates this moment they’re in, and she finds herself wondering what it is, how she might get into Jughead’s mind and find out. She considers it an odd thought, one she’s never had before. Jug’s always been endearingly odd, but she’s never felt compelled to ask him so many questions before. 

Nothing’s consistent in life like Jughead is. 

Well—until now. 

“I don’t regret it,” she hears herself say.

Jughead’s eyes finally settle on her.

“You don’t?” he asks. 

She shakes her head. She rubs her lips together before speaking, and she can’t help but notice Jughead’s eye flick down briefly to watch the movement. 

“Would you like to try it again?” she asks, and Jughead’s eyes zoom north to fix on her own, wide and blue.

After a beat, he puts his backpack down.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’d like to kiss you again, if I may.”

Betty feels herself smile wide. “Okay,” she says, nodding. “I’d like that, too.”

Jughead returns her smile, and before she knows it, his hands are once again on the back of her head, pulling her toward him, and his lips are on hers.

It doesn’t end anywhere near as abruptly as it had the last time.

In fact, it doesn’t end for quite a little while.

When Betty finally opens her eyes again, after Jughead has stepped ever-so-slightly back from her, he looks thoughtful.

She considers him.

“Have you ever kissed anyone before, Jughead?” she wonders out loud.

He cocks his head in thought and there’s a flash of something in his eyes, but it’s gone so quickly Betty thinks she must have imagined it. 

“Just you,” he says. She feels herself blush. 

“Well,” she smiles, “I guess it’s just another thing you’re unnervingly good at.”

She’s not sure she’s ever seen him so pleased with himself before, and she'd witnessed his pie-eating contest championship in fourth grade. 

She wants to kiss that smile, and so she does.

Which is exactly how Reggie Mantle finds them when he swings the bathroom door open and stops short upon spotting them.

They break apart in surprise, and then a slow, mischievous smile spreads over Reggie’s face.

“Oh,” he says, “this is interesting.” 

**Author's Note:**

> That's all. Have a nice day.


End file.
